TENDAE

2.0

Maybe I was too stupid to notice you
Or maybe I'm just one of your many fishes in the sea
You confuse me
You confuse me

(Jiwon)

Things between us started to go down hill when we moved to a larger, two-floor apartment. It was nice to have a personal space all to myself, and for once in years I didn't need to be mindful of others when I wanted to stay up a little late jamming to hardcore rap beats.
Next, since our comeback was relatively a success, we were offered more rooms for music recording and producing. Since we were the two main producers of the group, it was obvious that we each owned a room, all to ourselves. He started to hang out with other artists from our company, and I started to hang out with other people as well. Of course I knew everyone of his new buddies well enough to rest assured that they were the kindest and most talented and that he could learn a lot from them and he would be in safe hands around them, so I wasn't at all worried. At first, I felt so thankful, that we got new opportunities to face up with greater challenges and tie bonds with a bigger social group.

For the first two months, I was thrilled that we all were getting ahead in our lives, that we earned something that was well-deserved, until I realized that certain changes also meant the two of us never got to see each other as much as we used to.
Until I realized that even though we were both going forward, we were going in different directions.

Sure, we still exchanged ideas on writing songs for our group, but most of the time, we did that via emails rather than in person. We worked on different projects, we discovered different songs, and we met different people. We shared so little in common that it got harder to catch up on each other's life, which used to be the last thing I should be worried about.
We used to be partners in crime, and now we were just normal friends that sometimes chatted. He used to always hold my hands when he felt nervous, and now I couldn't tell if he was nervous anymore.
I used to be his only go-to person and I used to always get away with jokingly complaining about it, but now that he no longer looked for me, it started to feel empty.

It was embarrassing to admit, but sometimes when I shuffled through my instagram feeds and came across a funny post of him and his new friends, I missed how things used to be between us. How we used to have only one small tight room for every step of our creative process, and how that very room used to be our greatest kingdom, with us being the two kings. How we used to watch movies together to find inspiration and fell asleep midway. How we used to munch on unhealthy snacks at late night, put on some sick beats in the background and have small and sometimes pointless talks about anything and everything, just to distract each other from stress and assure one another about sharing a bright future ahead together while both secretly being so unsure. We used to need each other so much that everyone said it would be better if we can be apart every once in awhile. Now that we were so independent of each other, they asked if we had a change of heart.

We both would sometimes laugh it off, saying they were being silly, and that brothers might fight but brothers would always be brothers. Other time, we smiled awkwardly, blaming every gap between us on a certain thing called distance.
Without a spoken word, I knew we both agreed that distance was never really the problem.
Despite knowing I could find him any time if I would just walk a few step, I couldn't move an inch. I didn't want to be a nuisance, I didn't want to make a fool out of myself. It was never about our geological distance, because we were never that far from each other. They were right and they knew us too well, we were just ashamed and afraid to admit that, maybe, we did have a change of heart after all.
I was so sure that I didn't change, because my feelings for him were just about the same as day one. Yet as I finally found myself resisting the idea of persistently reaching out for him like I always used to do, I couldn't say that I was not to blame for the fact that we were falling out.
It would be difficult to put these scattered pieces of thoughts and feelings into words, but as each day passed for me, I knew less of him than I used to the day before. Inevitably, as each day passed for him, Hanbin found one less reason to be with me.

I should be happy, now that we were both moving on for the better. But why was I so sad, knowing that the kind of happiness that I yearned for, one that would take empty pockets and juvenile minds to share, would never happen to me ever again?

I was the only Peter Pan, lost in reality. I thought the world was my Neverland, but apparently, everyone else was growing. And when people grow, they grow apart.

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A/N: Second chapter! Let me know what you think! x